For all the waste in the house, it is advisable to adopt the best attitude in environmental matters. Here is information to easily identify how to better sort them, in order to recycle waste in an eco-friendly responsible way and to reduce pollution.
Waste, household and similar, is of different natures and consists of different materials. But they are all residues of daily activity and intended to be thrown in the trash. They gather non-recyclable household waste, dry, so-called wet, organic or fermentable recyclable waste, glass, and bulky or hazardous waste.
Dry recyclable waste
Plastic waste
Plastic represents 11% of our trash in California. Its character, non-biodegradable, makes its recycling all the more important. It would be better to drastically reduce the use of it, even banish it.
Valuation: Even if this still remains quite partial and difficult, its development is continuous. Today it allows the creation, among other things, of flower trays, hats, scarves, or even opaque bottles and oil cans.
Sorting concerns water bottles, flasks or cans of household products. Polystyrene trays, plastic bags and films, oil bottles, yoghurt pots must be excluded.
Steel and aluminum
The recycling of steel and aluminum is all the more important as this waste is very voracious in energy. Today, all steel articles contain on average 60% recycled steel. These are the coins, the supermarket trolleys, tin cans, etc. All empty packaging, aluminum and steel, can be recycled;
Aerosols such as solvents or insecticides, spray paint, or very dirty steel packaging should not be thrown into the same bin.
Paper waste
Representing more or less 22% of our trash in 2012, paper cardboard is the first dry recyclable waste. Its treatment is easy, efficient and contributes to supplying papermakers with recycled fibres. Recovery: Whether it is recycled household packaging or packaging for food liquids, newspapers or other, their recycling allows the production of corrugated or flat cardboard, toilet paper or, again, wrapping paper, or cellulose wadding. Sorting concerns all newspapers, sheets of paper and clean boxes,
Paper handkerchiefs, paper towels, disposable plates and food papers, fax paper, stickers, window envelopes when they are not vegetable (often difficult to identify) should be avoided.
Organic recyclable waste
Completely biodegradable, organic waste concerns all peelings, leftovers, bread or garden waste. These green and fermentable waste can be deposited on the platforms forms of composting at the recycling center or recycling personally. Indeed, if you have a vermicomposter, they can be added regularly to obtain a very rich compost, useful for your various plantations.
Glass recycling
Glass is very easily recycled and already accounted for 13% of our trash in 2018. Sorting concerns all glasses (bottles, pots or jars) insofar as they have been rinsed before and must be placed in containers or glass collection bins.
On the other hand, glass recycling does not include culinary glass and tableware. Indeed their chemical composition does not allow them to be incorporated into cullet (crushed glass debris and cleaned) used in glass furnaces.
What to do with bulky or hazardous waste
Hazardous waste
The qualification of hazardous waste depends on the different legislations national and at the state of California level. It concerns flammable elements, explosives, irritants, harmful, toxic, carcinogenic, corrosive, infectious but also mutagens (trichloroethylene solvent), and requires specialized dumpster rentals.
Most of them are very polluting and a large part are poorly recycled. However, this does not mean throwing them down the sink, the toilet, the gutter or in his garden. The right attitude is to conduct these elements well locked up in the recycling center closest to you.
Among the very common uses of hazardous products, batteries are highly polluting elements that contain heavy metals and toxic. Don’t throw them in the trash. You have several solutions to get rid of it. The dump, a collection point in town hall or in a supermarket are the possibilities that are offered to you.
Bulky waste
All waste that does not fit in the bin or is too bulky is considered bulky items. Rubble, scrap metal, old bicycles, bedding, furniture but also small and large appliances, they may contain heavy metals such as lead or asbestos.
The eco-attitude is then to take them to the recycling center. You can also make an appointment with the Long Beach municipal services, which often have a bulky waste removal system!
The ideal solution: no or less waste
Today, Californian residents recycle better and better their waste but fail to reduce their number. Yet there are extremely simple solutions to reduce our environmental footprint.
While continuing the work of sorting, doing it correctly to avoid contaminating an entire batch of waste and causing a sorting process additionally, an eco-attitude could be:
- favoring, for example, eco-refills for detergents or printer cartridges,
- to opt for large format products with less packaging,
- choose natural cleaning products and solid cosmetics to limit plastic packaging,
- or by limiting the printing of various documents.
We are millions and this is our strength. So all the little gestures you can do in terms of consumption and recycling count!
There is a very wide range of advice on its site for reducing its waste. Throw away less, by limiting food waste, by buying well and by equipping yourself intelligently are also effective solutions.
This way, a very interesting study on the analysis of the value chain of recycling of plastic materials on the official website of Long Beach Dumpster Rentals HQ.